Friday, March 14, 2008

In-Progress At Bristol, TN: Saturday Practice

With the weather delays of Friday, the available track time on Saturday before the Nationwide Series race will be used for practice. This situation will be fluid with the weather issues, so fans should be aware of schedule changes being very possible.

Bristol Motor Speedway will put the Nationwide Series cars on the track for practice. This session will be televised on SPEED at noon. The TV announcers are TBD as the weather situation continues to change.

Then, the Sprint Cup cars take to the track for their final practice session. This will be televised on SPEED at 1PM, but should be the NASCAR on Fox crew calling the action.

SPEED will then transition into live coverage of the 12 Hours of Sebring sports car race. NASCAR programming on SPEED resumes with NASCAR Performance at 10:30PM. This show will be followed by Tradin' Paint at 11PM.

This is an interesting time of the year for motorsports, as the sports cars and the Formula 1 circuits both get back to racing. The weather situation should be the deciding factor as to what viewers get to see on SPEED in the early afternoon.

This page will serve to host your comments about the SPEED coverage of the early practice sessions. There will be a new post up for the NASCAR Countdown show and the Nationwide Series race on ABC.

To add your comment to this post, simply click on the COMMENTS button below and follow the simple instructions. Thanks again for stopping by.

51 comments:

I definitely think it's about time for a Speed Channel 2. With all these other racing series starting up we are starting to lose TV coverage of NASCAR events. I don't know how the rain shuffled Saturday's schedule but originally the schedule was:

As a fan of only NASCAR and ARCA racing it frustrates me losing TV coverage of NASCAR practice and qualifying sessions for other forms of racing, so in a perfect world I would love there to be two Speed Channels. The Classic Speed Channel could have the shows like Pinks and all the other non-NASCAR racing series (F1, sports cars, ARCA, sprint cars, whatever) and Speed Channel 2, or "The NASCAR Channel" could be dedicated to all NASCAR all the time and would ensure live TV coverage of every NASCAR practice and qualifying session that takes place.

I understand the need for NASCAR fans like myself to be nice and share this channel with F1, sports car, sprint car, etc. fans but I wish there was a better solution, such as having Speed Channel branch out into two channels like ESPN did some 15 years or so ago when they had too many sporting events to televise for one channel of ESPN to handle. ESPN2 was a great addition for all sports fans in the early 90's and now in the late 00's I think it's time to reward racing/car fans with a second channel to expand our viewing options. What do you guys think?

As JD has noted several times in the past, it's more likely that NASCAR will start its own cable network as the other sports have. Why let SPEED have control?

12 Hours of Sebring is a true racing event; even if I'm not a big fan I acknowledge the status of Sebring, always tune in for a couple of hours and commend SPEED for airing most of it. NASCAR practice (Nationwide qualifying was canceled, it's only practice) is a non-event in the face of Sebring.

Everything for Saturday is the same, except the Nationwide cars will run their final practice from 8:30a.m. to 10:00a.m. Eastern (to be broadcast on a tape delay basis beginning at noon Eastern). There won't be qualifying for the Nationwide Series as they've already made out the starting lineup, based on points.

Trackside is on right now for those who missed it. I don't think it's playing tomorrow because of all the other racing.

Juan Pablo Montoya is making a fan out of me. Always liked his racing, but seems like a good guy and boy does he fit in on Trackside with the guys. Steve and Larry already make fun of how he says "hell, no!" to everything. Only thing he forgot is to bring some kind of loot for the guys, like gum.

Montoya actually had me (and the guys) laughing way more than the more low key Martin Truex and Kasey Kahne. Kasey has never seemed quite comfortable on Trackside, I'm not sure why. Maybe that's why they had Montoya on for so long. Martin did good, though. Anyway, Montoya might be wearing people down, I didn't hear much if any booing like I was expecting unless they told people not to boo him.

Hey thanks anon! We have a VCR, not a DVR I forget about Trackside a lot because the time changes every week. Great to see JPM.

We enjoyed this. The only thing is why did they change it where they have two guests on at the same time for a few minutes (transition between guests), with one at each end of the table? Hard for them to talk to both. They maybe should go back to having one guest on one end of the table, then a next one taking his place.

JPM looked like he had a good time hanging with the TS folks and vice versa. Like he said, F1 was business, and the NASCAR folks reach out to each other more, like with his charity (sure would like to see more of that visit this week by Kyle Petty and Brian France with JPM to Colombia, those clips looked neat. Perhaps it'll be on RaceDay?)

bevo -- too true! and there's been some great racing, especially down that long straightaway! way too early for so many spins and wrecks, tho': after all, it's a long, long race and we're hardly an hour into it!(and an andretti leads right now!)

I realize everything is on tape but that is better than nothing and to be honest I am not a morning person so I would have been DVR much of it anyway. I just hope they get cup practice in, have you seen the radar hugh green blob heading straight for them. We may be watching the NW race tomorrow. Did just watch Nascar Now from MN it was a good show, to bad it was not on at a more reasonable hour not to mention at the actual scheduled time (I learn my lesson yesterday and DVR the following show too) because Travis gave a great interview and YR needs all the publicity it can get.

NW has already happened and the cup cars are on the track now. So I guess we'll get to watch practice at least, still don't think the race will happen. Just hope we don't have a repeat of California and wait hours and hours and still have to come back the next day

ok, for all of you nascar fans who are jonesing for racing this morning while waiting for bristol to (maybe?) dry out? turn on speed & catch sebring! some very fine racing going on, great commentators, already some unexpected spins and wrecks, and a few cars already being repaired or behind the wall. you don't need to understand all the finer points to enjoy the racing, trust me! as bevo has noted, audio is iffy but just ignore that b/c the racing is worth it.(ah, damn! they just did a commercial for 'pinks'!)

bevo -- no schedule that i've seen yet. guess i should start looking! man, turn 10 is killing 'em this morning! i don't see any fluid there that should be causing those cars to miss that turn. i know the guys speculated on that but it looks clean to me. it's like the brake timing is wrong or something b/c both cars missed it at almost the same spot. (and i had to chuckle when they missed a spin & yellow flag!)and marco's at the front again. i agree: he needs to learn strategy and patience but he certainly has the family racing genes! sorry to see penske go behind the wall.good racing!

Kasey has never seemed quite comfortable on Trackside, I'm not sure why. Last night was one of his better appearances, believe it or not. Big Kasey fan here, but he isn't good on Trackside. The only time he gets excited is talking about his sprint car team. If they try to joke with him, he's always a step behind the joke, ignores the obvious opportunity they give him to make a joke, or sits there while they're laughing and waits for them to stop. He's too serious for Trackside I think.

Funny he didn't even know about it, I guess he's left F1 behind. (He said since they told him about it he would record it to watch today in rain delay.) Also liked the way he described driving at darlington. Must be true the way everybody was cracking up.

Trackside does need to lose the sixth chair. Trying to get six people in camera shot is too much and it looks blurry, you can't see their reactions as good.

hey bevo: check tvracing.com -- links to the le mans schedule over at americanlemans.com. looks like speed, nbc, and abc and mostly live w/a couple of tape delay races.(man! they should NOT have let marco make that decision about the tires! rule #1 in racing: ALWAYS take tires! sigh.)nascar fans: sebring is kinda like sonoma but with a whole lot more turns and a great straightaway that allows for some exciting passes. give up on seeing any cars on the track at bristol -- for now -- and catch some of sebring for a little bit!

Turn 10 is bit of a Bermuda Triangle today. I'll give the Speed guys a pass on a few missed things, can't be easy covering a field like this with what I'm sure is a rather minimal crew.

As far as Juan goes I'm sure he meant that he would be asleep during qualifying. He still follows F1 but downplays it so it's not a big topic when he does the press stuff. Just about all of the Cup drivers watch the races and if you prowl the garage area in the morning it will be on the tv's.

It will be a fun race tonight though, Alonso and Kiki didn't even make it to Q3.

Thanks, I looked at the schedule for the series. Interesting that ABC is getting in the coverage. On the 24 Hour Le Mans site they have a press release about a three year deal with Eurosport for live coverage but the interesting thing is it includes live streaming on the Eurosport site. I'm going to keep that in mind :)

Nope, Juan Pablo really didn't know about qualifying. DW asked him if he was knew what was on SPEED tonight at 11, and Juan Pablo said no, what? and that's when they told him it was F1 qualifying.

I'm sure he still follows F1 (and have read his comments about it, actually), but he doesn't appear to be the type to downplay anything. I wouldn't be shocked if he doesn't follow it as closely as those who've never raced in it, like Gordon and KuBusch, who are noted fans and watch the coverage.

Because Nascar fans would flood their in box if we got no practice coverage and evidently there are more of us. Plus isn't that a 12 hour? race and 12 hrs is alot of coverage. Not all 24 hrs at Daytona were televised

JPM did add that he goes to bed early these days. And when DW said he liked F1, JPM said the starts, first few laps, and pit stops are good. And now that he knows about it, he would DVR F1 to watch today.

They all then went into some kind of inside F1 joke that was never explained and they were all talking over each other and I couldn't understand. But they were having a good ol' time.

anon 12:27: agreed! nascar is my first choice but c'mon! it's practice, for heaven's sake! i'd much rather watch racing than a practice no matter what! i can catch up with how various drivers are doing online at fox if i absolutely need to know how they're running.

and newracefan, yes, it's a long race at sebring but it's a RACE, ya' know? it counts. and it's damn good racing as well. as a RACE fan, that's what i want. how 'bout practice broadcasts on some other channel and they switch off sebring for, uhhh, i dunno: qualifying?

better yet: get a channel for everything nascar and a separate one for other motor sports. stricklinfan has a great idea with that one!

Maybe the weather is affecting the satellite transmission? They seemed to notice and went to commercial right away. And the problems don't affect the commercials, so the problem seems to be originating from the track.

The way the signal is cutting out, it definitely looks like wind on the satellite dish. That is a problem that is very hard to work with and solve. You get a gust of wind that moves the dish just a bit, and it losses it's connection.

I very much appreciate Speed making time to fit in Nationwide practice (was supposed to be qualifying, I'm sure if it was originally scheduled as a practice session they wouldn't have televised it) and the final Sprint Cup practice session.

I feel for you sports car fans that want more coverage of your racing but unfortunately with only one channel of Speed you guys have to share air time with NASCAR-only fans like myself that couldn't care less about any other form of racing outside of NASCAR. Believe me I'm just as angry as you are on the NASCAR fan side of the fence that I have to put up tape-delays and no TV coverage of a Cup practice session like it's the fall of 2007 all over again when ESPN was in town.

Boy a NASCAR-only channel would certainly be a great thing, whether it would be a NASCAR owned channel or a second Fox-owned Speed Channel 2. I think that's one thing we can all agree on. NASCAR fans would get all their live practice and qualifying coverage and all of our Truck racing live and fans of other forms of racing - F1, motorcycles, sports cars, etc. wouldn't have to spend so much time cursing at their TV's as NASCAR pre-empts their racing.

Hilarious, especially when Juan looked at Hammond before he replied as if to say "Dude just played into my hands." Hammond, Byrnes, and Larry Mac were all "ooh, burn!"(in a friendly way) and Darrell laughed too. Good TV.